Data Venia
by Aurora West
Summary: Nothing about Weyoun Five's death in a 'transporter accident' ever rang quite true.


Disclaimer and author's note: _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ is the property of Paramount. I wrote this fic in 2004 and never published it here as it's much darker than my usual fare, but I recently decided to bring it up to my current writing standards and post it.

'Data venia' is a Latin phrase meaning 'with due respect'.

**Warning:** **This fic contains non-con sexual violence (no rape).**

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><p><span>Data Venia<span>

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><p>"He should speak to you with greater respect."<p>

"Someday I'll let you teach him that lesson."

–Gul Damar and Gul Dukat, 'Favor the Bold'

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><p>"Well, Weyoun, for once <em>you've<em> slept late."

The Vorta struggled to open heavy eyes and blearily stared at the thick shape in the doorway of his quarters at Cardassia Central Command. He felt so odd; so strangely exhausted, but he forced himself to sit up in his bed and ask, "What are you doing here, Damar?" His voice was hoarse and he gingerly touched his throat.

It hurt. Something was wrong.

"What's the matter?" Damar stepped into the room with that arrogant swagger of his. "You're not sick, are you?"

"Of course not," Weyoun replied sharply.

"Lights," Damar ordered, and Weyoun flinched and closed his eyes as they were assaulted by the intolerable brightness. "Hm," the Cardassian began, staring. "I don't know. You look even paler than usual." Damar circled the bed predatorily, looming over Weyoun, and the Vorta felt a ridiculous fluttering of fear in his stomach. Stupid. It was only because he felt so odd.

With a barely concealed smile, Damar added, "I hope it wasn't anything you ate."

A wave of dizziness swept over Weyoun, making the room yaw sickeningly. When it righted itself again, Damar seemed to be leaning in even closer and his smile had grown menacing. Weyoun shivered, chilled suddenly, and demanded despite the pain in his throat, "What do you want?" Another chill prompted him to pull his sheets higher over his chest.

"Cold? Aren't you always complaining that it's too warm here?"

"If you don't need anything, then get out." Weyoun attempted to glare, but he just felt smaller next to the hulking legate. "Now," he added, though his voice sounded unsure, even to him.

Damar laughed, and Weyoun noticed the stench of kanar on his breath. "Why should I?"

"Because I'm telling you to!"

"Why, Weyoun, I'd think you'd be happy to see me up so early. Especially since I'm just concerned about your health."

Weyoun's chills had quickly grown to constant shivers, and he dispensed with whatever niceties he may have been capable of. "Get out of my quarters or I'll call the Jem'Hadar."

Damar's unpleasant smile twisted into a leer. "I don't think you will." Dizziness overtook Weyoun again, this time accompanied by nausea, and he had to put a hand out to steady himself. The expression on Damar's face, when he glanced back up, disturbed him. With a sniff, the Cardassian remarked, "You look even more like a rat without any clothes on."

Weyoun inhaled sharply. He hadn't even realized through the haze of whatever was afflicting him – hadn't remembered he'd been so warm the previous night that he'd undressed and hadn't bothered to put anything else on before going to bed. Now he wished fervently that he had; not just for the chills, but because he'd never felt so vulnerable.

He really felt ill. And he didn't like the way Damar was staring at him.

Suddenly, the Cardassian grasped the sheet and tore it away. Weyoun tried to grab it and failed. He would have scrambled away, but when he tried to move, a searing pain tore through his stomach and doubled him over. Through the haze of pain, he heard Damar say, "Just like a hairless rat. Disgusting."

At that comment, Weyoun clenched his teeth against what felt like a knife ripping through his gut and forced himself to get up and put some clothes on. He had a very bad feeling that he wasn't ill and that something else entirely was making him feel so terrible. Something Damar had had a hand in, if his self-contented, cocky behavior was any indication. Could he perhaps have tracked down some poison that Vorta weren't immune to? They were hard to find, but they were extremely toxic. Even if it wasn't poison, he needed a doctor – though on Cardassia Prime, so far from home, he couldn't possibly get to a Vorta doctor quickly enough. There weren't even any on the planet, he remembered suddenly. In the entire system. This was a war, and ship space couldn't be wasted on luxuries like doctors.

Anyway, it was already too late. If he'd been poisoned and it was affecting him this badly, it had probably already shut down his livers.

On balance, then, he'd have settled for a phaser to get Damar out of his quarters. The Cardassian was watching him with a look of cruel amusement of his face. Weyoun felt himself trembling, both from the pain and from fury. "Enjoying this, are you, Damar?" Weyoun spat as he fumbled with his pants. "Perhaps a bit too much?" There, that had wiped the sneer off Damar's face. Weyoun felt a bit of smug satisfaction. Ridiculous, really, since he was dying.

Damar stepped closer until he was only centimeters from Weyoun. "And just what do you mean by that?" he growled.

Weyoun's legs wobbled as another wave of pain ripped through him, but he held his ground. "You're staring," he said deliberately. "Could it be that you don't find me as disgusting as you claim?"

There was a very still, tense moment between them, and then in one rapid motion, Damar wrapped his fingers around Weyoun's neck and slowly squeezed them tighter and tighter until the Vorta's breath grew wheezing. With another leer, Damar grabbed one of Weyoun's nipples and twisted it hard, breaking the skin with his fingernails and drawing blood. "You make me sick," he said in a low, dangerous tone, breathing in Weyoun's face. The smell of kanar was even stronger – Damar was drunker than Weyoun had ever seen him.

Damar pushed him away roughly, sending him sprawling on the floor, curled up and coughing. In a tight, strained voice, Weyoun said, "How like you Damar, to come in here and…and assault me when I can't fight back. Why don't you do what you really want to, you Cardassian pig?"

"Shut up!"

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

Weyoun found himself unable to respond as his stomach was shot through with pain again. This time, it didn't lessen after a couple of seconds, and he retched dryly, choking on pain and his own spasming throat. For several moments afterwards, he laid there, breathing heavily and waiting for another explosion in his gut. He closed his eyes and felt nausea well up once more, exacerbated by the sound of Damar's heavy footfalls coming closer to him.

"What's the matter, Vorta? Why don't you get up?"

Weyoun didn't answer. His skin broke out in a cold, clammy sweat and the dizziness returned. This time it didn't go away and his chest tightened, forcing him to breathe in labored, shallow gasps. When he felt Damar kneel down next to him he tried to move, but felt as though the floor was falling out from beneath him. There wasn't much chance he could have gotten away anyway, and he expected that Damar was inebriated and angry enough to do something really unpleasant. He found himself almost hoping that whatever was wrong with him would just kill him now and spare him what was sure to be a most humiliating, and probably painful, experience.

The only defense he managed was to curl up further, but in a moment, he felt Damar forcing his pants open and slipping his scaly hand inside. "What use do Vorta have for dicks?" he spat, taking hold of Weyoun's penis in a crushing grip. When it remained limp, he remarked, "Not much good, is it?"

"Is _that_ what you want, Damar, a lesson in Vorta physiology?" Weyoun said tightly, forcing his voice to come out as close to normal as he could. Difficult, when every nerve in his body was screaming in pain and he was being…_depredated_ by a man whom he despised and had no hope of physically overcoming.

Damar's leer grew uglier, and with his free hand, he reached for the enclosure on his own pants.

Weyoun felt something snap in him then and he forgot the pain and nausea and dizziness, and the fact that he was a small man, a bureaucrat, and Damar was a soldier. Quickly, he pulled away and lashed out with his fist at the same time. He hadn't hit someone in well over a century, the last of his line to do so having been Weyoun Two. There was a certain satisfaction to it.

His fist connected with Damar's face and produced a rewarding crunch from his nose. "I will not," Weyoun hissed, "be degraded. Get away from me." He noted through the fog that was developing over his eyes that Damar's nose was bleeding heavily.

The Cardassian stood up slowly and then moved once again towards Weyoun. He stomped down hard over his groin and it took all of Weyoun's strength and poise not to cry out. Instead, he bit his tongue, slicing the tip off and filling his mouth with blood. Defiantly, he stared up into Damar's eyes, then spat a mouthful of purplish-red blood at the Legate's legs.

The taste of his own blood in Weyoun's mouth set off the nausea again. This time, he vomited, managing to turn his head so he didn't choke but unable to avoid being sick on himself. He was beyond caring. His vision was starting to fail and his stomach felt as though it was being sliced open centimeter by excruciating centimeter.

"You should treat the leader of the Cardassian Union with more respect," he heard Damar slur with contempt. "Or you might get into trouble someday." When Weyoun didn't answer, Damar continued, "Now, we're both due in Lakarian City for a conference. But I think maybe you need a doctor."

Weyoun didn't move, not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't, but he felt Damar pull him roughly to his feet and discovered that his legs nearly supported him. He found himself being dragged down the corridor but didn't have the strength or will to protest. Distantly, he noted that Damar was informing someone that they wouldn't be going to Lakarian City and that he needed to transport Weyoun to a doctor. He barely knew what was happening; he thought, as he was shoved onto the transporter pad, that his legs buckled beneath him, but his body had so failed him that he wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't.

The transporter energized. And then, blackness took him, and there was nothing.

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><p>Damar rubbed his eyes tiredly and shifted on his feet, wishing he'd brought a bottle of kanar, even though it was too early for it. It was also too early to be in the transporter room, which he was, especially to greet an agent of the Dominion. Especially to greet this <em>particular<em> agent.

The appointed time for the transport arrived and a Vorta materialized on the pad. The all-too-familiar violet gaze fell on him, and Weyoun said, "Damar, how…nice…to see you again."

"Which one are you?" Damar asked, faint traces of sarcastic amusement in his voice.

Weyoun stepped down and traversed the room, staring piercingly and unblinking at Damar the whole time. "Six," he replied, his tone chilly. "And I'm to inform you that my predecessor's death will require a full investigation." He raised his eyebrows. "I'm sure you understand. It was, after all, rather _odd_. Particularly the suspicious memory gap prior to Weyoun Five's…accident."

"Maybe he was too busy to upload his riveting memories of his nightly routine," Damar said.

Weyoun continued staring at him. The damned Vorta never blinked. "You know, Damar," he said, "the interesting thing is that I have a very distinct recollection of my predecessor explaining the memory retrieval process to you, as well as the fact that a small number of poisons interfere with that process."

"Do you?" Damar pretended to reflect. "I suppose, now that you mention it, I do too." Weyoun tilted his head and narrowed his eyes a little, and Damar went on, "If there was foul play involved – which I'm sure there wasn't – then of course I wouldn't want it to go unpunished." With an insincere smile, he added, "Or the death of my dear friend Weyoun Five to go unavenged."

The Vorta smiled very slightly, though his eyes were still like ice. "I'm sure you wouldn't." He leaned closer. The man had one of the least commanding physical presences Damar had ever encountered – soft, quiet, effeminate – and yet you couldn't help but give the bastard your undivided attention. Making sure he held Damar's eyes, Weyoun added in a low voice, "And just between you and me, Damar, if you had anything to do with it, you'll wish you had died in something as quick and painless as a transporter malfunction."

"Come now, Weyoun. Would I _really_ harm my ally?"

Weyoun didn't answer. With one last probing look, he glided out of the room, trailed by several Jem'Hadar.

Damar scowled. He'd never be rid of the insufferable Vorta. Maybe he'd get the kanar after all.


End file.
